Woman hit by bat at Red Sox game still in serious condition

BOSTON - A woman hit by a broken bat at Fenway Park during a game between the Oakland Athletics and the Boston Red Sox on Friday night remains in serious condition at a Boston hospital.

Tonya Carpenter was struck in the head by Oakland player Brett Lawrie's bat as she sat near the field between home plate and the third base dugout.

A spokeswoman for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Hospital says Carpenter's condition is not expected to change Sunday.

Her family said in a statement released by the hospital Saturday they are "grateful to all who have reached out with thoughts and prayers."

Forty-four-year-old Carpenter, of Paxton, Massachusetts, had posted a Facebook photo from the game before the accident. A friend said Carpenter was there with her son and a friend.

Alex Merlis, of Brookline, Massachusetts, said he was sitting in the row behind the woman when the broken bat flew into the seats just a few rows from the field between home plate and the third base dugout.

"It was violent," he said of the impact to her forehead and top of her head. "She bled a lot. A lot. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that."

Police initially called Carpenter's injuries life-threatening on Friday night. A department spokeswoman referred all questions on her condition to the hospital on Saturday.

After the game, Lawrie said he hoped the woman would recover.

"I've seen bats fly out of guys' hands in(to) the stands and everyone's OK, but when one breaks like that, has jagged edges on it, anything can happen."

Concerned about a rash of flying broken bats and the danger they posed, Major League Baseball studied the issue in 2008 and implemented a series of changes to bat regulations for the following season. Multi-piece bat failures are down about 50 percent since the beginning of the 2009 season, MLB spokesman Michael Teevan said.

Though dozens of fans at big league ballparks are struck by foul balls each season, there has been only one fatality, according to baseball researchers - a 14-year-old boy killed by a foul line drive off the bat of Manny Mota at Dodger Stadium in 1970.